California Takes Lead in Stem Cell Research, Scientist Recruitment

Since California passed a $3 billion bond measure for stem cell research,
recruitment of top scientists has outpaced every other state. The new
funding has sparked the building of state-of-the-art facilities and a push
for stem cell innovations.

SPENCER MICHELS, NewsHour Correspondent: It was a coup when Japanese stem
cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka agreed to work at the Gladstone Institutes
in San Francisco. Yamanaka is considered one of the world's top scientific
pioneers.
He is one of almost 50 stem cell researchers who have been recruited
recently to work in California labs. They're taking part in a new gold rush,
sparked by the passage in 2004 of a $3 billion state bond issue to finance
stem cell research, far more than any place else.
GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: I have made this decision
with great care.
SPENCER MICHELS: The state money was meant to get around President Bush's
2001 restrictions on federal funding of research that severely limited the
embryonic stem cell lines that could be used.
STEVE WESTLY (D), Former California State Controller: The eyes of the world
are on California today.
SPENCER MICHELS: The state agency set up to disperse the funds was sued,
tying up the money for two years, but it is finally starting to flow. Even
with the lawsuit, the research never stopped, fueled by loans and donations.
But it's even more intense now, says Dr. Irving Weissman, the head of
Stanford's Stem Cell Institute.
DR. IRVING WEISSMAN, Stanford School of Medicine: It's exploding, because
now the best and the brightest young people are starting to believe they
have a chance to be here in the United States and do this research. So the
loan money that came a year ago and started the training of those young
people allowed us to develop the facilities, allowed people like my lab and
other labs to start getting into this field, because we could do it without
the restrictions of the federal government.
SPENCER MICHELS: Embryonic stem cells are human cells that are capable of
becoming specialized cells, like liver or brain. They hold great promise of
curing disease and of providing insights into how cells work. Their use is
considered by many researchers a revolution in medicine.
But getting cells from discarded human embryos that are only a few days old
and small as a grain of sand has provoked moral objections, since the
embryos die. Yamanaka's breakthrough that made him a hot recruit was to find
a way to program the skin cells of adult mice to act like embryonic stem
cells, or ES cells.
He came to California so he could use embryonic cells to prove his findings.
That's something he couldn't do in Japan. He intends to see if the results
with mice can work with humans.
DR. SHINYA YAMANAKA, Gladstone Institutes: Human cells are different from
mouse cells in many aspects. I would predict that it is more difficult to
make ES cells from human skin cells than from mouse skin cells, but we don't
know yet.
Dr. Michael Clarke
Stanford Cancer Center
In California, it's not only did we want to get things done, but how do we
facilitate getting them done? And then let's do it.
Transforming the stem cell field
SPENCER MICHELS: If Yamanaka can eventually apply his technique to humans
and not have to use stem cells taken from human embryos to fight disease,
the ethical debate about embryonic stem cells could dissipate. Gladstone's
Deepak Srivastava says the work itself is groundbreaking.
DR. DEEPAK SRIVASTAVA, Gladstone Institutes: It's an understatement to say
that this work has transformed the landscape of the stem cell field, and
it's already fueling a rush to begin to translate these findings into future
human therapies.
SPENCER MICHELS: Srivastava is a pediatric cardiologist who is using stem
cell research to study common congenital heart abnormalities. He was
recruited to California two years ago from Texas, where legislators are
divided as to whether the state should support such research.
DR. DEEPAK SRIVASTAVA: I think it's safe to say that the future that we've
all been talking about, the future is now. We're just at that stage now
where the field has reached a tipping point.
SPENCER MICHELS: Recruiting is taking place at major institutions throughout
California that are working on a variety of diseases. At Stanford, Irv
Weissman was instrumental in persuading cancer researcher Michael Clarke to
leave his job at the University of Michigan and head for California.
Michigan is one of six states where embryonic stem cell research is banned.
DR. MICHAEL CLARKE, Stanford Cancer Center: I think Stanford in particular,
and California in general, I think is a much richer environment for doing
science. In California, it's not only did we want to get things done, but
how do we facilitate getting them done? And then let's do it.
One of the people who came to my lab with me from Michigan is a pediatrician
who's interested in pediatric cancer. And because of legal restrictions, he
couldn't really do the work he needed to do to understand these early
childhood cancers.
Dr. Arnold Kriegstein
University of California, San Francisco
It's expensive to recruit especially the very best stem cell biologists, so
we need start-up packages which include, of course, money for the first few
years to get them off their feet.
Perks for scientists
SPENCER MICHELS: The gold rush has meant good salaries and research perks
for scientists willing to make the move. Neurologist Arnold Kriegstein has
been recruiting for the University of California, San Francisco's, program
in developmental and stem cell biology, which he directs.
DR. ARNOLD KRIEGSTEIN, University of California, San Francisco: It's
expensive to recruit especially the very best stem cell biologists, so we
need start-up packages which include, of course, money for the first few
years to get them off their feet, to get them up and started. We need space
and laboratory facilities for them to work in. We need to protect them from
too many teaching responsibilities. We have to put together this recruitment
package.
SPENCER MICHELS: UC-San Francisco, or UCSF, has plans for a new $109 million
stem cell building. Stanford built this special stem cell research facility
partly as a recruiting tool. The labs, like this one at UCSF, are
particularly expensive because all the equipment has to be duplicated, one
set paid for without any federal money -- and which therefore can be used to
experiment with embryonic stem cells -- and another to work only with the
few lines of cells that were approved by the federal government.
Kriegstein showed us duplicate high-tech microscopes.
DR. ARNOLD KRIEGSTEIN: They can cost half-a-million dollars or more, and we
have two of them in this room. We have to be very careful that we don't
mingle NIH and non-NIH-sponsored activities.
SPENCER MICHELS: Kriegstein specializes in stem cells for cancer research.
He says his aim is to find the parent or cancer stem cells that are seeding
tumors, the so-called mother cells, so that drugs can be targeted at those
cells.
He was responsible for recruiting researcher Holger Willenbring, originally
from Germany, to San Francisco, partly by promising him enough mice.
What did they do? Did they ply you with presents, or did they just make it
nice, or how did they recruit?
HOLGER WILLENBRING, University of California, San Francisco: Well, first of
all, they tried to get a sense if you really can provide what they're
looking for, like the lab space, for example, or how many mice you're going
to be able to have and...
SPENCER MICHELS: How many?
HOLGER WILLENBRING: Well, we have quite a bit of mice. And what kind of
start-up funds you will have to buy equipment and things and to hire people
and get started.
Holger Willenbring
Pediatric Resident
Among the children I took care of, the ones with genetically or inborn
inherited liver diseases really had the poorest outcomes, because the
treatment options were so limited.
Treating liver disease
SPENCER MICHELS: As a pediatric resident, Willenbring had seen children die
of liver disease. And as a result, he went into stem cell research.
HOLGER WILLENBRING: Among the children I took care of, the ones with
genetically or inborn inherited liver diseases really had the poorest
outcomes, because the treatment options were so limited. And, as you know,
donor organs are very sparse, and the alternative therapies are,
unfortunately, not available.
SPENCER MICHELS: Willenbring succeeded in using adult stem cell therapy to
treat mice with liver disease. At UCSF, he now wants to use embryonic stem
cells, which he hopes will transform into new liver cells to correct disease
and prevent death.
Such practical applications could have a big pay-off. UCSF transplant
surgeon Dr. Nancy Ascher says stem cells could be an alternative to some
transplants: 100,000 people a year need organ transplants, but only 7,000 to
8,000 are done.
DR. NANCY ASCHER, University of California, San Francisco: The idea of
repopulating a liver, for example, with new cells, a damaged liver that's
not failed but damaged, is very exciting. The notion of repopulating a heart
that might have damaged cells from a heart attack is a very exciting
possibility.
SPENCER MICHELS: Although UCSF got Willenbring from Oregon and Stanford got
Clarke from Michigan, there is also competition within California.
Christopher Scott directs Stanford's Program on Stem Cells in Society.
CHRISTOPHER SCOTT, Stanford University: Well, for example, the University of
California, San Francisco, is just down the road from us at Stanford. And we
were very lucky to get one of their top embryonic stem cell researchers to
come here to Stanford.
SPENCER MICHELS: Is it a polite competition, or is it getting a little bit
cutthroat?
CHRISTOPHER SCOTT: So far it's been polite. We'll see. I think, when you
have as much money as California does, it's going to be really interesting
to see how the top labs are arm-wrestling over the young scientists.
Laura Elias
Graduate Student
When you discover something new, there's nothing quite like that kind of
excitement, where you really think you're seeing something that nobody has
seen before and nobody has described before.
Recruiting top graduates
SPENCER MICHELS: Some of those young scientists are just out of college.
Laura Elias was recruited as a graduate student by the UCSF lab.
LAURA ELIAS, Graduate Student: When you discover something new, there's
nothing quite like that kind of excitement, where you really think you're
seeing something that nobody has seen before and nobody has described
before. And that can be very exciting.
SPENCER MICHELS: Elias was the lead author of a study on the migration of
brain cells that recently made the cover of the prestigious journal Nature.
If researchers can identify what molecule is allowing brain cells to
migrate, they may be able to stop the migration of brain cancers.
For all the money being poured into research and the enthusiasm, there are
also cautionary notes.
DR. IRVING WEISSMAN: I think we're on the edge of the next revolution in
biomedical science, but we need to make sure that we're not over-hyping it
and we're not fooling ourselves. So far, in the animal models of these
studies, it's working, and it's working great. We have to approach American
medicine though and say, "Here's a whole new way of thinking about it. Are
you ready for it?"
SPENCER MICHELS: Besides California, a half-dozen other states currently
fund embryonic stem cell research, but California scientists expect to
maintain the large lead they've built up, even if a new president lifts the
federal restrictions on funding such work.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You can send your own questions about stem cells to
researcher Irving Weissman by going to our Web site at PBS.org.

Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
[log in to unmask]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn